1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure pertains in general to data communications, and more specifically to routing of encrypted streams between a media source and a media sink through a router.
2. Description of the Related Art
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is a specification designed to protect digital content across various interfaces. A typical HDCP configuration includes an HDCP data source device (i.e., DVD player, HD DVD player, Blu-Ray player, computer video cards, etc.), an HDCP Repeater (i.e., receiver), and one or more HDCP data sink devices (i.e., television, monitor, etc.). Encrypted data streams are transmitted from the HDCP source device to the HDCP sink devices via the HDCP Repeater. Before transmitting the data streams, the source device authenticates with the repeater device, and the repeater device authenticates with the downstream sink devices.
As one example application, HDCP is used to encrypt data streams. An HDCP version 2.2 (HDCP2.2) repeater can route HDCP2.2 encrypted streams from the data source to the data sink, but it does so by decrypting the incoming encrypted streams and then re-encrypting the streams for downstream delivery. HDCP2.2 decryption and encryption are expensive functions to implement due to the number of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) engines.